You know the feeling – trying to explain something to someone who is not picking up what you’re putting down. So what should you do?
Explain, or Listen?
As a product marketer, you might often feel this emotion when you are trying to explain a new feature or functionality in your product, or generally when you’re trying to explain to someone how to follow a process or complete a procedure. When you feel this way, it might be a sign that we’re doing this wrong.
“Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.” -Dale Carnegie
It’s much easier to learn how to do something by trying it yourself, rather than having it exained to you.
5 Things You Can Do To Listen Better to Customers
Here are five things you can do to help your customer experience a product rather than explaining it to them. It’s by no means an exhaustive list, and a great place to get started.
- Ask them how they feel when they are using your product or trying to solve their problem
- Have them record a video and walk you through what they’re trying to do
- Use join.me, goto meeting, or skype to have a live conversation and let them drive
- Ask them to tell you in their own words
- Get in their shoes and try to do the thing they’re trying to do (experience it yourself as a 1st time user)
What’s Next?
Once you have this feedback, what will you do? How about focusing on the biggest small thing you can do – meaning the smallest amount of improvement you can make that will benefit the largest number of customers. This might not be a permanent fix, and should be something you can measure easily.
